Apple buys social-media analytics firm Topsy

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CUPERTINO, CA – SEPTEMBER 10: Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an Apple product announcement at the Apple campus on September 10, 2013 in Cupertino, California. The company launched the new iPhone 5C model that will run iOS 7 is made from hard-coated polycarbonate and comes in various colors and the iPhone 5S that features fingerprint recognition security. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In the latest in a string of recent purchases, Apple (AAPL) on Monday said it had bought Twitter partner Topsy, reportedly for more than $200 million, scooping up a San Francisco-based firm that taps into and analyzes the Twitter stream for consumer sentiment.

An Apple spokeswoman Monday confirmed the purchase, but added only that “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

It’s unclear how Apple might use the technology developed by Topsy, one of only a handful of certified Twitter partners with access to the so-called ”fire hose.” That means Topsy, and now Apple, can tap into the hundreds of billions of tweets sent out since the microblogging site was launched in 2006. That information can be harnessed in potentially powerful ways for Topsy and its users, who can use the company’s tools to scour and make sense of the sprawling mountain of information.

As Topsy searches the fire hose, its algorithms can draw valuable insights from Twitter conversations, spotting and then sharing all sorts of trends among consumers, from the music they’re listening to, to the kind of foods they’re eating.

Analyst Van Baker with Gartner Research said Apple may again be venturing back into social networking after a disappointing foray into the sector with its music-oriented Ping service launched in 2010 but closed two years later after a flat performance.

“Social is pretty important for a company as consumer-centric as Apple,” Baker said, “and the purchase of Topsy could be a baby-step back into social. The fact that it’s an analytics company, versus a pure social-networking company, puts Apple tangentially in social, but still related to it.”

Apple, for example, could add value for users of its iTunes radio service by including Topsy-generated suggestions on what artists are being discussed on Twitter. Topsy’s real-time data could also help advertisers on iTunes radio custom-tailor their pitches to listeners.

Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc.

Patrick May is an award-winning writer for the Bay Area News Group working with the business desk as a general assignment reporter. Over his 34 years in daily newspapers, he has traveled overseas and around the nation, covering wars and natural disasters, writing both breaking news stories and human-interest features. He has won numerous national and regional writing awards during his years as a reporter, 17 of them spent at the Miami Herald. In 1993, Pat shared with his colleagues a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the Herald staff's coverage of Hurricane Andrew and its aftermath.

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